Category Archives: Animals

The Straight Poop

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The Gates of Allen Station, shame, shame on you.

Yes, folks, another Texas Homeowners Association is taking the idiotic and pathetic step of DNA testing all dogs in the neighborhood. Swab your doggie’s cheeks, submit the DNA sample to your HOA. That swab goes to the lab and your pooch is branded for life. Now, if your dog brands the lawn of the HOA president or a board member, the feces fits the crime, the owner gets the fine. The thought of HOA officials dropping to their hands and knees and probing poops with thermometers and scoops just defies the imagination. The HOA claims it’s a way of stopping canine terrorists from messing up the neighborhood.

Well, frankly folks, it’s just another way of wrecking a nice neighborhood by turning neighbor against neighbor. First of all, who’s motivated to institute such a practice? It costs a couple hundred bucks per pooch per swab. And the owner of each defiling dog is fined hundreds of dollars. That money is going into someone’s pocket. It’s a real revenue generator.

But second, it won’t work. Once homeowners start getting angry at being fined, they’re going to start collecting poop from all over and tossing it onto the board president’s lawn. He’s going to get innundated. Of course, he’ll submit hundreds of different DNA samples from the hundreds of brown spots in the front yard. And of course, he’ll charge thousands and thousands of dollars in lab costs to the HOA’s ‘secret’ reimbursement budget. The homeowners will be assessed, of course. Everybody will hate everybody, the president’s house will really get bombed now.

When people get stupid, stupid things happen.

(click here for Dallas dog story)

 

Neighborhood Snit In Austin

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It’s happening all over the country, but another old neighborhood in Austin, Texas has decided to create a community improvement association to encourage homeowners to clean up their properties. The old time homeowners who’ve been in the Hyde Park neighborhood generally don’t want to turn the association into a mandatory HOA. Newbies in the neighborhood definitely want that kind of dictatorial power.

One homeowner says he’s spent a fortune upgrading his house. So have other residents. But there’s one neighbor who won’t go along.

“It’s just not fair!” the clean guys say. “Just no fair!” Gosh, when you hear a whiner throwing that kind of phrase around, watch out! Life isn’t fair. What’s fair about a crippled kid, or racism, or crime, or any of the other unfair things that happen in life.

This neighborhood’s first step is a good one. A voluntary group that encourages a cleaner neighborhood is a boon to property values. When a homeowner resists improving his or her home, that’s a time for diplomacy, not threats or humiliation. Not ostracism or confrontation. This is a chance to prove the benefits of inclusion and good will, volunteerism and neighborliness. It actually works, folks!

Well, these ‘clean’ neighbors now want the fascist rules of the HOA movement imposed so they can snatch the offender’s house, clean it up themselves, and sell it to a new owner who’ll agree to abide by the ‘clean rules.’ And suddenly you’ve got a fascist government arising from the ashes of what used to be a relatively free neighborhood.

The place to fight for mandatory rules is with the local zoning commission. If an HOA is created then it creates a neighbor vs. neighbor mentality where the most vicious of personal attacks are made. If city zoning rules are imposed, the disputes are less expensive, less confiscatory and peace in the neighborhood can be maintained.

If Hyde Park homeowners think an HOA will raise property values, think again. Those who don’t want to live, or don’t like living in an HOA amount to about 90% of the population. Think about it. 90% of all potential home buyers won’t even look at your for sale sign. What’s your nice clean home really worth now? HOAs have just been developing a stinky reputation over the past few years. And you’ll see my predictions come true. HOAs do not improve or preserve property values, and there are thousands of examples around the country.

(click here for Hyde Park story)

http://www.austinhydepark.org/2014/04/is-there-a-homeowners-association-in-hyde-parks-future/

Some Non-HOA Hilarity

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Taking a radical departure from the regular topic in this blog, here’s a little humorous offering from comedian Tim Hawkins. He has a music degree and has played in Carnegie Hall. He uses his guitar to poke fun at institutions and conditions of life. In this bit he pokes wonderful fun at those of us who are getting older:

(link to Tim Hawkins concert)

Now, if we could just get Tim Hawkins to write a series of HOA songs!

 

Stupid, Stupid Legislators

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We’ve talked in this forum about some very stupid legislators, idiots in Arizona, California, Virginia and Florida who thought they were doing the right thing when their actions were absolutely against the interests of homeowners. But wait’ll you hear this one.

With all the emphasis on energy conservation and carbon output would you ever believe that an entire state would begin penalizing homeowners who install solar panels or rely on wind energy? Would you ever think such penalties would pass through a Legislature without debate?

Me, neither.

But welcome to Oklahoma.

I have friends in Oklahoma. I respect the intelligence of Oklahomans. It’s really a sophisticated state with great schools and doctors, businessmen, inventors and developers. But hold your breath as I spring this one on you.

The Oklahoma Legislature, without discussion, has passed a measure to assess (read that “fine”) any homeowner in the future who installs solar panels on his house!  And it most likely will be signed into law by the Governor. We’ve certainly heard of the idiocy of Homeowners Associations which sink their fangs into homeowners who install solar. But the State of Oklahoma?

Give me a frickin’ break!

Solar companies are dismayed. Wind energy companies are dismayed. Environmentalists are stunned. Save the world and pay a fine. What are these numbskulls thinking?

(link to Outside The Beltway)

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/oklahoma-to-charge-homeowners-who-install-solar-panels/

Murdered By Swans, HOA Sued

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I’m not sure how far this lawsuit will go, but homeowners in this HOA will end up with special assessments to pay all the lawyers.

Have you ever heard of someone being murdered by swans? Me neither. But according to this Illinois lawsuit mute swans are capable of breaking a man’s leg. That probably makes them as dangerous as a vicious dog. And we all know that HOAs which use vicious dogs in their common areas are not immune to lawsuits.

Don’t count me as a skeptic on this one. I vividly remember being attacked by a vicious goose in the Quadrangle at Fort Sam Houston when I was just ten or eleven years old. My younger brother and I were both attacked and injured and it’s given me a lifelong fear of certain angry birds.  So believe me that large birds won’t hesitate at taking on a human. And even though I love animals, I get a special kind of glee roasting and serving certain birds on holidays.

Maybe this lawsuit will be tossed out of court because it’s frivolous. Maybe that won’t happen until the lawyers make a few hundred thousand bucks in legal fees. In the end, though, the homeowners will get pummeled. And these angry birds will get away with murder.

Count on it.

(link to murderous swans)